Design and Analysis of Honeycomb Structures with Advanced Cell Walls

Honeycomb structures are widely used in engineering applications. This work consists of three parts, in which three modified honeycombs are designed and analyzed. The objectives are to obtain honeycomb structures with improved specific stiffness and specific buckling resistance while considering the manufacturing feasibility. The objective of the first part is to develop analytical models for general case honeycombs with non-linear cell walls. Using spline curve functions, the model can describe a wide range of 2-D periodic structures with nonlinear cell walls. The derived analytical model is verified by comparing model predictions with other existing models, finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental results. Parametric studies are conducted by analytical calculation and finite element modeling to investigate the influences of the spline waviness on the homogenized properties. It is found that, comparing to straight cell walls, spline cell walls have increased out-of-plane buckling resistance per unit weight, and the extent of such improvement depends on the distribution of the spline’s curvature. The second part of this research proposes a honeycomb with laminated composite cell walls, which offer a wide selection of constituent materials and improved specific stiffness. Analytical homogenization is established and verified by FEA comparing the mechanical responses of a full-detailed honeycomb and a solid cuboid assigned with the calculated homogenization properties. The results show that the analytical model is accurate at a small computational cost. Parametric studies reveal nonlinear relationships between the ply thickness and the effective properties, based on which suggestions are made for property optimizations. The third part studies honeycomb structures with perforated cell walls. The homogenized properties of this new honeycomb are analytically modeled and investigated by finite element modeling. It is found that comparing to conventional honeycombs, honeycombs with perforated cell walls demonstrate enhanced in-plane stiffness, out-of-plane bending rigidity, out-of-plane compressive buckling stress, approximately the same out-of-plane shear buckling strength, and reduced out-of-plane stiffness. For the future design, empirical formulas, based on finite element results and expressed as functions of the perforation size, are derived for the mechanical properties and verified by mechanical tests conducted on a series of 3D printed perforated honeycomb specimens

A computational homogenization approach for the yield design of periodic thin plates. Part II : Upper bound yield design calculation of the homogenized structure

International audienceIn the first part of this work (Bleyer and de Buhan, 2014), the determination of the macroscopic strength criterion of periodic thin plates has been addressed by means of the yield design homogenization theory and its associated numerical procedures. The present paper aims at using such numerically computed homogenized strength criteria in order to evaluate limit load estimates of global plate structures. The yield line method being a common kinematic approach for the yield design of plates, which enables to obtain upper bound estimates quite efficiently, it is first shown that its extension to the case of complex strength criteria as those calculated from the homogenization method, necessitates the computation of a function depending on one single parameter. A simple analytical example on a reinforced rectangular plate illustrates the simplicity of the method. The case of numerical yield line method being also rapidly mentioned, a more refined finite element-based upper bound approach is also proposed, taking dissipation through curvature as well as angular jumps into account. In this case, an approximation procedure is proposed to treat the curvature term, based upon an algorithm approximating the original macroscopic strength criterion by a convex hull of ellipsoids. Numerical examples are presented to assess the efficiency of the different methods

A computational homogenization approach for the yield design of periodic thin plates. Part I: Construction of the macroscopic strength criterion

International audienceThe purpose of this paper is to propose numerical methods to determine the macroscopic bending strength criterion of periodically heterogeneous thin plates in the framework of yield design (or limit analysis) theory. The macroscopic strength criterion of the heterogeneous plate is obtained by solving an auxiliary yield design problem formulated on the unit cell, that is the elementary domain reproducing the plate strength properties by periodicity. In the present work, it is assumed that the plate thickness is small compared to the unit cell characteristic length, so that the unit cell can still be considered as a thin plate itself. Yield design static and kinematic approaches for solving the auxiliary problem are, therefore, formulated with a Love-Kirchhoff plate model. Finite elements consistent with this model are proposed to solve both approaches and it is shown that the corresponding optimization problems belong to the class of second-order cone programming (SOCP), for which very efficient solvers are available. Macroscopic strength criteria are computed for different type of heterogeneous plates (reinforced, perforated plates,...) by comparing the results of the static and the kinematic approaches. Information on the unit cell failure modes can also be obtained by representing the optimal failure mechanisms. In a companion paper, the so-obtained homogenized strength criteria will be used to compute ultimate loads of global plate structures

Homogenized non-linear dynamic model for masonry walls in two-way bending

A simple homogenization approach accounting for mortar joint damaging is presented, suitable to analyse entire panels in two-way bending in the non-linear dynamic field. A rectangular running bond elementary cell (RVE) is subdivided into several layers along the thickness and, for each layer, a discretization where bricks are meshed with plane-stress three-noded triangular elements and joints are reduced to interfaces with damaging behaviour is assumed. Non linearity is due exclusively to joints cracking, which exhibit also a frictional behaviour with limited tensile and compressive strength with softening. A damaging material is utilized for joints in order to properly take into account the actual opening and closure of cracked mortar under cyclic loads. Finally, macroscopic curvature bending moment diagrams are obtained integrating along the thickness inplane micro-stresses of each layer. Homogenized masonry flexural response under load-unload conditions is then implemented at a structural level in a FE non-linear code based on a discretization with rigid three-noded elements and elasto-damaging interfaces where elastic and inelastic deformation is allowed only for flexural actions. The two step model proposed is validated both at a cell and structural level, comparing results obtained with both experimental data and existing macroscopic numerical approaches available in the literature

Design and Analysis of Honeycomb Structures with Advanced Cell Walls

Honeycomb structures are widely used in engineering applications. This work consists of three parts, in which three modified honeycombs are designed and analyzed. The objectives are to obtain honeycomb structures with improved specific stiffness and specific buckling resistance while considering the manufacturing feasibility. The objective of the first part is to develop analytical models for general case honeycombs with non-linear cell walls. Using spline curve functions, the model can describe a wide range of 2-D periodic structures with nonlinear cell walls. The derived analytical model is verified by comparing model predictions with other existing models, finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental results. Parametric studies are conducted by analytical calculation and finite element modeling to investigate the influences of the spline waviness on the homogenized properties. It is found that, comparing to straight cell walls, spline cell walls have increased out-of-plane buckling resistance per unit weight, and the extent of such improvement depends on the distribution of the spline’s curvature. The second part of this research proposes a honeycomb with laminated composite cell walls, which offer a wide selection of constituent materials and improved specific stiffness. Analytical homogenization is established and verified by FEA comparing the mechanical responses of a full-detailed honeycomb and a solid cuboid assigned with the calculated homogenization properties. The results show that the analytical model is accurate at a small computational cost. Parametric studies reveal nonlinear relationships between the ply thickness and the effective properties, based on which suggestions are made for property optimizations. The third part studies honeycomb structures with perforated cell walls. The homogenized properties of this new honeycomb are analytically modeled and investigated by finite element modeling. It is found that comparing to conventional honeycombs, honeycombs with perforated cell walls demonstrate enhanced in-plane stiffness, out-of-plane bending rigidity, out-of-plane compressive buckling stress, approximately the same out-of-plane shear buckling strength, and reduced out-of-plane stiffness. For the future design, empirical formulas, based on finite element results and expressed as functions of the perforation size, are derived for the mechanical properties and verified by mechanical tests conducted on a series of 3D printed perforated honeycomb specimens

The vanishing viscosity limit in the presence of a porous medium

We consider the flow of a viscous, incompressible, Newtonian fluid in a perforated domain in the plane. The domain is the exterior of a regular lattice of rigid particles. We study the simultaneous limit of vanishing particle size and distance, and of vanishing viscosity. Under suitable conditions on the particle size, particle distance, and viscosity, we prove that solutions of the Navier-Stokes system in the perforated domain converges to solutions of the Euler system, modeling inviscid, incompressible flow, in the full plane. That is, the flow is not disturbed by the porous medium and becomes inviscid in the limit. Convergence is obtained in the energy norm with explicit rates of convergence

Acoustical properties of double porosity granular materials

Granular materials have been conventionally used for acoustic treatment due to their sound absorptive and sound insulating properties. An emerging field is the study of the acoustical properties of multiscale porous materials. An example of these is a granular material in which the particles are porous. In this paper, analytical and hybrid analytical-numerical models describing the acoustical properties of these materials are introduced. Image processing techniques have been employed to estimate characteristic dimensions of the materials. The model predictions are compared with measurements on expanded perlite and activated carbon showing satisfactory agreement. It is concluded that a double porosity granular material exhibits greater low-frequency sound absorption at reduced weight compared to a solid-grain granular material with similar mesoscopic characteristics